"rancor"

[sonreir]

Heritage


Butter, first, melted in the pan on the stove. Bread, dropped in once the butter had melted, then a layer of cheese, followed by a layer of very thinly-cut apples, and another layer of cheese, before finally being topped with another slice of bread. Sharp cheddar, the aged white stuff that Mom said we couldn't afford. Granny Smith apples, tart and green, my favorite. Sourdough bread from the bakery downtown.

I heard her making it, heard the sizzle as the pat of butter hit the pan, and felt my stomach drop.

I'm not going to like this, I thought. I didn't know what was coming, but I recognized the sandwich for what it was: a bribe.

"Jennifer," said my mom, as I walked into the kitchen. "I was just making lunch."

I waited for her to say something, anything else. When she didn't, I did. "Fancy cheese, huh?"

I could see the rest of the block sitting on the cutting board. Cabot Clothbound. Thirty-something dollars a pound at the fancy grocery store. My favorite, something Dad had gotten me hooked on.

White and crumbly and sharp, it didn't melt well but paired beautifully with the sweet-tart of the apples.

Mom didn't say anything, just stared down at the sandwich in the pan. After a moment -- when it must have been brown enough on one side -- she flipped it.

"We need to talk," she said finally.

I sank into one of the battered oak chairs that surrounded the kitchen table. "Okay." I wanted to ask, what about, but I knew that she'd simply clam up if I did, refuse to talk until I had the sandwich in front of me, and then drop whatever bad news it was on me like an anvil -- a heavy thud that would leave me stunned. It was how she'd told me that Dad was leaving, when I was ten, and how she'd told me that he'd died, when I was thirteen. A peace offering and then the bad news: thud.

I'd asked, both those times, what was wrong. I'd blurted it out, had no chance to ask questions.

This time, I waited.

She eyed me warily, as if expecting the question I didn't want to ask. "I'm going away for work," she said. "It's a year-long contract. I'm being posted...overseas."

The slight pause, before she told me where she was being posted, told me what to expect.

"I'm not coming, am I?"

"Look," she said, wincing. She hadn't expected an argument. I didn't mean to give one, but then, I don't think she'd expected any pushback at all. "You're sixteen. You're starting your junior year in the fall. It doesn't feel fair to..."

"Okay," I said.

Mom blinked a bit, surprised. She walked over to the cupboard and got down a plate -- one of the every-day ones, chipped from years of use -- and slid the half-forgotten sandwich out of the pan, put it on the table in front of me.

"Thanks."

"Yes," she said. "I..."

I gave her time, to think of what she was going to say. Was I going to boarding school? It didn't seem likely, given what I knew about our finances. Plus, she'd said something about starting my junior year, presumably at Delmont, and not somewhere else.

"I've talked to your Grandmother Rose," she said, after a moment. "She and Wayne are willing to take you in, if you want to go."

I shrugged and picked up the sandwich. "Okay."

"You want to?" She sounded hopeful, almost. I didn't want to rip that away from her.

"Yeah," I said. "Better than starting somewhere new, right?"

Mom relaxed visibly. "I'm glad you see it that way," she said.


My parents had a mixed-magic marriage. Dad was a handler; Mom wasn't. She'd known it before they got married. He never tried to hide it -- on the contrary, he was open about what he did and why he did it. He wasn't a powerful talent, but he was still a talent.

Mom had known, but she was never comfortable with it. I didn't understand why not. Dad wasn't really comfortable with what she did for work, either, how often she had to travel -- but it wasn't the basis of their fights.

Magic was what I heard them fight about, constantly, both of them snapping at each other about how the other person didn't respect what they did.

When Mom told me that they were getting divorced, I wasn't surprised.

They split custody 50-50. Mom had me one week; Dad had me another. They sold the house and split the proceeds. He moved into an apartment, nearer to work; Mom moved into a smaller house. I had bedrooms at both, each decorated to reflect what they thought I liked.

Little changed, after the divorce. Mom pushed me toward music. Dad tested me on my affinity for magic. When he found out I had talent, he started working with me, showing me the basics of what could be done.

I recognized Mom's discomfort with everything magical. Beyond discomfort -- hatred. She'd flinched, whenever Dad talked about work, and somehow she never quite managed to explain to her coworkers what it was her husband did for a living.

I kept the lessons a secret from her until after he died.


Dad's death felt ridiculous. He was over at my grandparents', visiting them for the Sunday dinners that had become a recurrent event after the divorce. He complained about having a bad headache and went to lie down on the sofa in the living room.

When Grandma Rose went to take him some aspirin, he was unresponsive.

"A brain aneurysm," the doctors told her, later. "Nothing that could have been done."

Rose called Mom, and Mom came in to tell me, offering me spaghetti with homemade meatballs for dinner, dropping it on the table when I asked what was wrong.

That was when I started hating pasta.

She helped me clean out my room at his apartment. Grandma Rose took care of the rest of it -- donating or selling some stuff, giving the money to my mom, putting some things -- like his watch and cufflinks, small stuff that she thought I might want as a reminder someday -- into storage.

Mom raised an eyebrow, when she saw the books on my bookshelf there. Dad had been helping me learn the very, very basics of magic. There were a bunch of beginner's books on the bookshelf, studded with Post-Its (Dad was scatterbrained and forgot where we'd been or what we'd been studying, and the books weren't linear in what you had to study).

"Oh, Jenny," she sighed, seeing the title of one of them: Mastering the Elements.

She stopped bothering me about ballet after that.

To her credit, she didn't try to stop me, either. Instead, she turned me over to Grandma Rose. Grandma was the one who had taught Dad, at least to begin with. She still taught lessons to some of the kids in her neighborhood.

Grandma began coming over to our house once a week, picking up where my dad had left off.

I loved it. I didn't talk to Mom about it, and she didn't ask any questions. I knew it was a disappointment to her. She told her coworkers -- now friends -- about how I was doing at school, how violin lessons were going, showing off the awards I won, and bragging about recitals.

She didn't tell them about magic.


Mom hadn't tried to erase Dad. It had just sort of...happened. Even before he died, after the divorce, she didn't talk about him much. After he died, she didn't mention him at all. I knew she thought about him sometimes -- there was a certain look she'd get, one that told me, she's thinking about Dad again -- but whatever those thoughts were, she never shared them. I never asked. She always looked unhappy, like she didn't want to be bothered.

There was a lot I wanted to ask her about him, about whether she missed him the way that I missed him, but I couldn't bring myself to.

She took me to therapy after he died. I spent more time talking to the therapist than I did to her.

We started by never talking about Dad, and eventually it edged into almost never talking at all. Mom took me to music lessons and softball practice, and when the time came, she taught me how to drive, riding quietly in her car with me behind the wheel, but we never discussed anything important. The conversations I had with her were impersonal. I might have been talking to one of my teachers, or the librarians -- some adult tasked with watching me, making sure I stayed out of trouble, but uninterested in anything else.

Moving in with my grandparents was a relief, in a way. I could ask all the questions I had about Dad, without fearing that I was intruding on something, asking something unacceptable. Grandma Rose and Grandpa Wayne talked about him a lot, bringing him up as if it were the natural thing to do.

I didn't have to hide anything from them, the way I sort-of-had with Mom. I'd never meant to, but it had happened, and there were huge parts of myself I couldn't talk to her about.

My dad was easy. I had my grandparents to talk with me about him.

My mom was a question mark, something unresolved, someone I didn't know how to ask about.


I finished my junior year at Delmont, and when Mom called to tell me that she was staying abroad another year, I didn't say anything.

"Okay," I told her, over a phone connection full of static. "Fine, okay."

"You don't mind?" she asked, and her voice sounded...hopeful? It was the happiest she'd sounded in a long time, maybe since before Dad died.

She must really love it over there, I thought.

"No," I told her. "I want to graduate from Delmont, and then maybe go to the community college here. They have a basic course in, um."

Magic. They had a basic certification in magic, if I wanted to follow in Dad's shoes, maybe get a feel for things and then branch out, try to find someone to apprentice with, and develop my talent further.

That was the elephant in the room, what I couldn't discuss with Mom.

Dad had never been a big talent, but I was.


Mom moved back in April of my senior year.

I'd applied to the magic program the previous January and had already gotten my acceptance. The letter and accompanying information sat on my dresser at Grandma and Grandpa's, waiting for me to schedule a time to take one of the aptitude tests and figure out what classes they'd put me in. Grandma was helping me study. There were books stuck full of papers and Post-Its heaped around the room.

"I understand if you don't want to move back in with me," Mom said, when explaining to me that she was finally returning home. "It's a lot of upheaval in the middle of your senior year."

I'd eyed the books, the different diagrams and whatnot that I had tacked up on the walls, things I needed to study and memorize if I was going to have a hope of testing out of the required first-year classes (all theory and no practical applications; they'd put me back a year and cost me money I didn't really have).

"Um," I said, over the phone. "Can I...wait and talk to you when you get back?"

Grandma Rose shook her head, listening to me.

"You're kicking the can down the road," she said, after I hung up.

"I know," I told her. "But I also know..."

Mom hates magic, I thought. I don't want her to hate me too.

Now, she was back, and the conversation had to happen.


I made her dinner. I didn't know how else to go about it. Food was how we communicated.

It wasn't anything impressive. Grandma had been teaching me how to cook, and I'd taken food and nutrition at school.

I fixed a salad, with a homemade citrus vinaigrette that my teacher had taught our class how to make, and got Grandpa to help me grill a whole chicken. Grandma made a strawberry pie with a streusel top.

Mom showed up at 6, just like I'd told her, and Grandma and Grandpa made themselves scarce. I'd asked them to stay, but Grandma, who knew something about my mom, said that they were going out.

"You need to do this alone," Grandpa said. He hugged me. "She's your mom, Jenny -- she'll understand."

Standing in the kitchen, fretting as I plated everything, I wasn't so sure.

I carried everything into the dining room. I'd set the table so it looked nice.

"This is great," Mom said. It wasn't the first time I'd seen her since she got back, but it was the first time we'd set aside specifically to have a conversation. Every other time had been when one or both of us was rushing off to do something else, traveling here or there without regard for what came next.

I set the plate down in front of her. "Thanks."

"So," she started. "Grandma told me you were applying to colleges. Did you hear anything back?"

I sat down heavily in my chair. "Um."

"She said specifically that you were looking at applying to some of the magic programs in town."

I stared down at my plate, my eyes glued to the salad. "Um, yeah."

I waited for her to say something, anything.

"Did you get in?"

I looked up. I thought she would be pissed off, upset, something. Mostly, she looked...interested? Like she cared about what I was going to say next, as if the entire world didn't hinge on it.

"Yeah," I told her. "I have to take the aptitude test before orientation in July. I want to test out of the first year, save a little bit of money."

"That's great," Mom said.

I blinked. "Um."

"Is it what you want to do?" This was the tone I'd expected -- concern, with maybe a little bit of is this a good idea thrown in. "Is Rose...pushing you to do this?"

"God, no!" I exclaimed. "No, I -- this was my idea. She told me I should pick something stable, like what you do, and I said no, I wanted to keep it up...I have more talent than Dad did, and..."

She flinched, when I mentioned Dad.

"Sorry," I said. "I..."

"It's fine," Mom interrupted. "You don't have to talk to me about it." She forced herself to smile. "We don't have to talk about everything tonight, Jennifer."

I recognized the tone, her voice full of pain. I hadn't heard her sound like this since before Dad's funeral, when she'd had to explain to just everyone what had happened to her ex-husband. She hadn't wanted to force Grandma to be the one to go ahead and call everyone, tell them the news, so she'd taken it upon herself to do it. Even though they'd barely talked, except for things about me, even though the divorce was still new and raw, she'd stepped up and taken over, made sure that no one else had to take on that pain. That was the tone, like she was forcing herself to say something she didn't believe, tamping something down for my benefit.

"No," I said. "I want to talk about it."

Mom toyed with her salad. "Rose didn't force you into it?"

"No." I sighed, a long, drawn-out sound. "I love this stuff. Dad started teaching me, before he died, and it's...what I'm good at."

"I always wondered," Mom said. "If he would. It was one of the things we couldn't agree on."

I straightened a little in my seat. "Really? I didn't try to hide it from you, I just...wasn't sure how to bring it up. I know you hate magic."

Mom flinched. "I don't hate magic, Jenny."

"I used to hear you and Dad fighting. You don't have to lie," I reassured her. "It's not for everyone."

Mom fiddled with her salad for a moment, clearly thinking about how to say whatever it was that had to come next. "Did your father ever tell you that I was a talent, too?"

"Uh." I stared at her. I couldn't have been more surprised if she'd told me that actually, my real mom was the First Lady and my dad was from Mars. "What?"

"How did you think we met?"

"In school...oh."

Dad had gone to the same program I'd enrolled in. I'd always assumed that Mom had started at the community college, but in a different program.

"We got married too young, and I got pregnant," Mom continued, as if I hadn't spoken. "And we both knew...we couldn't afford to both keep at it. Apprenticeship is long and hard and it doesn't pay well; we didn't know who we'd end up apprenticed to, or where we'd end up living. I didn't want to have an abortion, and your dad didn't want to give up, so...I switched what I did. When it became clear that apprenticeship wasn't in the cards for your dad -- when he'd reached the end of the limit of what he could learn, and no one was willing to take him, he started working in the shop, and that was when things soured. I learned to love what I did, and I love my job now, and your dad eventually came got used to what he did and liked it too, but our marriage never really recovered. We both loved you, but we forgot how to love each other."

"I...didn't know," I said slowly. "Dad never said anything, and Grandma and Grandpa..."

"It's not their story to tell," Mom said. "Your dad was always a little embarrassed, I think, that I gave up my career for him, but I never really regretted it. My talent wasn't as strong as his, and it was never my dream, the way it was his."

She sighed heavily. "The chicken's getting cold; let's finish dinner."

"Did you hate Dad?" I blurted. I couldn't help it -- if she didn't hate magic, then why had she been silent? Why hadn't we ever been able to talk about everything?"

"Oh," said Mom quietly, and I realized that she was on the verge of crying. "No, I loved your dad. I wished that we'd been able to work it out, but we never were. I might have resented him for a while, after the divorce, but now..."

I waited.

"Now, I'm just happy that we knew each other, even if it was only for a little while."


I moved back in with Mom, graduated from high school, took the aptitude test and placed into the second half of first year -- not quite what I'd hoped, but better than nothing.

After graduation, Mom asked if I wanted to stay with her, or if I was planning to live with my grandparents, the way they'd offered.

"So long as you don't mind if I practice in the basement sometimes," I told her.

"I don't mind."

Comments

[fausts_dream]

I am a sucker for a modern magic tale (Dresden files etc)...what I like about this is the fact the "magic" part is almost irrelevant the story is about the family and the misunderstandings that came between.

[sonreir]

Thank you! Originally this was much (MUCH) longer, and magic played a bigger role, but, well, y'know, no one wants to read 7K words of writing for Idol, not when we're on a deadline! :) I'm glad it worked for you!

[furzicle.livejournal.com]

Well written. It's true what Fausts_dream said, about the magic part being somewhat irrelevant, though I do think it helps move the story along. I'm not sure the story would have had the same impact if it had been about the daughter of an accountant and a banker, for example.

[sonreir]

Thanks! Yeah, I debated about whether or not to leave it in, and ultimately decided that I wanted to, because if I do end up playing with this again (I probably will; I have a hard time leaving stuff alone), I'll want to remember that it WAS about something weird, not just, "I want to be a musician but my parents don't support that!" :)

[bsgsix]

This is a great piece with incredibly relatable lines: "Dad's death felt ridiculous," for example. You didn't need to say much after that; it was clear what was implied, and I like that level of thoughtfulness.

While this is VERY much a family story, and how families connect and adapt and relate, I might be the dissenting voice when I say that I think the magic IS essential. Magic is part of that connection, of the relevance, of what finally binds mother and child. Now, they can communicate over more than food. Now, there is an openness when so many doors had been bizarrely closed when she left.

This is excellent. I haven't commented much recently, but I felt compelled to do so here.

[sonreir]

Thank you! I'm glad it worked for you.

This is one that hit a little close to home for me, so I'm glad that it, ah, "stuck the landing", so to speak, for you. I don't think death has ever felt real to me, like something that definitely happens; I remember the last time I lost someone close to me, everyone telling me that they were so sorry and offering their condolences, and it was like, "Why? Did you have a hand in this?" ...which is not the right response, honestly, but what FELT right at the time (because "I'm sorry for your loss" feels hollow and wrong; it would have been more honest if they'd said something like, "I'm sorry you just had a massive hole ripped out of you, are you okay?" -- but I digress).

I hope you're doing all right...I saw that you've been quietly lately, and I was wondering. Glad you're still around. <3

[rayaso]

This is a great story about a magical family and the stresses it can cause.

[sonreir]

Ha, that's a succinct way of putting it! Can you write ALL the summaries for my pieces? ;)

(Thank you, truly. <3 )

[d0gs.livejournal.com]

I loved this! It felt so real and was so emotionally touching. Absolutely the kind of book I love to read :D

[sonreir]

Considering that this was originally 7K(!) before I did a LOT of editing, I'm really glad to hear that! :)

[murielle]

What a beautiful story about communication and how important it is in relationships, how we succeed and how we fail in it. Your characters ring true, and your voice is strong. Well done!

[sonreir]

Thank you!

[megatronix]

Ooh I love this so much. The friction between daughter and mother, as often occurs. The teaching of magic through generations. The reveal that the mother was gifted in magic and actually IS going to be supportive of her daughter!!! SO AMAZING! I just love the way you tell stories, too, your tone and cadence, the way things are revealed a little at a time, and all the little details that make it so real and relatable. Nicely done!

[sonreir]

Aww, thank you! You always leave such nice, thoughtful comments about what I put out -- I really appreciate it and I hope you know you've made my Idol experience better! <3

[megatronix]

That's awesome, I'm so glad!!

[halfshellvenus]

I actually thought this was a straightforward drama piece until I got to the mention of the father's profession, but really, it still was.

Misunderstandings, resentments, lost opportunities, awkward relationships, and bad assumptions are the heart of this story. The magic, and the way it doesn't seem to be fully integrated or accepted by all, adds a layer of additional complexity.

Was the father's aneurysm in part caused by his doing magic? The mother seemed to be embarrassed that he had died, which is not the usual reaction.

[adoptedwriter]

A happy ending! Yay!

[babydramatic_1950]

I agree that this is a story with universal appeal. I am curious what Jen's mom *did* end up doing though. And unlike Jen, I would have been *thrilled* if my mother had moved away when I was in high school. I would have *loved* to live with my grandparents instead. All I ever wanted from my mother was a little "space" and sadly I had to angrily take it for myself.

[flipflop_diva]

I really love this! It's such a great family story, magic aside. I adore stories about magic and the supernatural and the strange, but I really love that the magic is almost an afterthought here, because it could have been a mother and daughter disagreeing about almost anything.

And I love the ending too. After all those years, I'm glad they're finally talking.

[itsjust_c]

I really enjoyed reading this! There are some great real life elements that could happen in every family mixed in with the all the (family secret) magic parts of their lives.